


Another Chapter

by Xie



Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-13
Updated: 2010-01-13
Packaged: 2017-10-06 05:49:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/50328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xie/pseuds/Xie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a story I wrote for "The Challenge in Two Parts" amnesty. It was originally posted <a href="http://asylums.insanejournal.com/qaf_challenges/127441.html">here</a>. It is a post-507 AU, with no bombing of Babylon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Another Chapter

I.

The first time I fucked Justin after he moved out was three weeks after I got back from Sydney.

I was sitting at my computer in the loft, trying to decide between a hard night at the baths and a hard night wrestling with a report Ted had sent me. There was a day when that would have been a no-brainer, but running the largest advertising agency in Pittsburgh took its toll on my social life. Not to mention I was discovering that being CEO of my playground wasn't as much fun as I thought it would be.

I heard a key in the door, and watched as it shuddered open. I told myself it was Michael, but I knew it wasn't.

Justin stood there in the dim light from the hallway, his blond hair a little shaggy on the collar of his dark jacket. "Hey."

I didn't answer right away. "Hey yourself. What are you doing here?"

He shut the door and walked towards the desk, unwinding his scarf from around his neck. But he didn't take his coat off.

"I wanted to talk to you." He blinked, and bit his lip for a second. "I wanted to tell you something."

I waited. I tried not to think about the ten thousand things this could be that I wouldn't want to hear.

Justin made a gesture with his hand, and then picked a pen up off my desk. I reached out and took it away from him. "Can I get you a drink?" I stood up. I needed one, even if he didn't.

He let me pour him a scotch, and stood there uneasily, sipping at it.

"Want to sit down, or is this something short and sweet?"

He sighed. "I just wanted to tell you that I'm moving. To New York."

I carried my drink to the sofa and sat down. That was, although I didn't really want to admit it, one of the ten thousand things. "Good. You belong there. All artists should at least try New York."

He nodded. "That's what Lindsay said. And after the article in Art Forum… did you…"

I cut him off. "She showed it to me. Congratulations."

He sat next to me on the sofa. "Brian…"

I stared in front of me, drained my glass, and set it on the table.

I felt him slide closer, and something inside of me shifted, but I didn't move.

I heard him sigh, or maybe it was just his breath moving across my face. And I turned towards him, and kissed him. Why not? We weren't together, but this time wasn't like the last time. There wasn't anyone else waiting somewhere for him, at least as far as I knew, and I couldn't think of any reason not to do it, except that I knew it was going to hurt like hell.

But that was later. Right now was just his mouth, soft and opening to mine. It was just Justin's tongue slipping over mine, his hands frantically opening my shirt while I pulled him to his feet to drag him to the bedroom. It was his arms and legs wrapped around me while I fumbled with the condom, the hiss of his voice in my ear when I pressed my cock inside him.

When he came, he hurt me, fingers digging into my arms, heels driving hard into my back, ass clamping on my dick. But the pain raced up and down my nerves and got mixed up with the pleasure boiling out of my balls, and I felt myself sucking and biting the skin of his neck while I came.

I shouldn't have sent him away marked like that, but in the end, I couldn't help it.

I kept my mind a careful blank when we were finished, lying half-on, half-off him, my hand on the back of his neck. I felt him move, like he was getting up, and I forced myself not to react, but he just wriggled down and whispered in my ear, "Can I stay tonight?"

I nodded. I don't think either of us slept much, even though we didn't fuck again until the morning. That time he was the one who pushed inside of me, and I was glad at how much it hurt. I focused on that, the burn and too-much fullness, Justin's forehead resting against my back, his hands steady on my hips.

After we both came, I lay under him just breathing, and he pulled gently out of me. He went into the bathroom, and when I heard the shower, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry, or just get up and leave.

But I followed him in.

II.

The second time I fucked Justin after he left was the first time he came back to Pittsburgh. I think it took both of us by surprise. It was Debbie's birthday, a dinner I almost didn't go to. But Michael and I were trying to piece things back together, and even though we hadn't gotten very far, I decided at the last minute to go. Habit, I guess.

No one told me Justin was going to be there. Michael and I never discussed him, and Lindsay didn't know. I suppose Justin knew he might see me; he didn't look surprised.

And I wasn't surprised when he followed me into the yard after dinner. Some things never change.

I blew out a stream of smoke. "Not enough nightlife in New York for you? You just had to come back to the Pitts?"

I don't know if he smiled, because I didn't look, but his voice sounded amused. "If you ever figure out how to resist the combined force of my mom, Deb, and Michael, let me know."

I snorted. "Or even one of them."

This time I did glance at him, and he nodded. "Or that."

I threw my cigarette down, and pulled him against me, hard. I kissed him, and he kissed me back. There was nothing sweet or melancholy about it. It was just raw, and I was almost scared by how good it felt to kiss him again, to feel him grinding against my leg, to touch his skin.

We stood there panting, my hands tangled in his hair, our foreheads pressed together. I broke the silence. "Come on."

He didn't move at first, and the words just hung there in the air between us, but after a minute, he jerked his head. "Okay."

We didn't go back inside. We just slipped down through the alley and into my car, and I took him to the loft. I kissed him in the elevator, and told him everything I was going to do to him that night, pouring every hot dirty word into his ear while he licked and bit at my throat and neck.

We didn't even make it to the bed.

Justin didn't stay all night that time. I got up and dressed, and drove him to his mother's. She wasn't at the door waiting, but I still felt a little guilty watching him run up the stairs and let himself in the door. He paused before going inside, and turned and lifted his hand. I just nodded, and pulled away.

III.

The third time I fucked Justin after he left was in New York. It had been almost a year since the time before. I'd only seen him once, at Christmas, and that time, I'd been warned.

I'd stopped by the comic book store at lunchtime one day, to see if Michael wanted to get something to eat. When we sat down at the diner, he looked at me across the table. "I talked to Justin last night."

I picked up the menu, as if it had changed since any of the other forty two thousand times I'd looked at it. "Oh? How is the lad? Taking the art world by storm?"

"We were talking about a new issue of Rage. He sounds happy." Betty came over and took our orders, and I hoped that was the end of the Justin Taylor Chronicles, but the best was yet to come. "He'll be home for Christmas, he said. He's coming to Ma's."

I resolved to develop a burning need to spend the holidays in South Beach, but I didn't tell Michael that. And when the day finally came, I'd somehow forgotten to go anywhere, and ended up, like I always did, at Debbie's.

Justin felt good against me when I hugged him by the stairs, but I'd given up smoking so I didn't go out back. And that was that.

A few months later, I was over at Lindsay's, visiting Gus. She told me Justin had gotten his first show. "Not a solo show," she said. "But it's a prestigious gallery, known for finding emerging artists. It's a good first step for him."

I contemplated the high-rise apartment complex Gus was constructing out of blocks made of recycled tires, more acceptable to his lesbian moms than petrochemical-based Legos. "It's getting too tall," I told him. "It'll fall down."

He shook his head, and added another story.

It didn't fall.

Later, I heard about Justin's show from Michael, from Emmett, and even from Ted. I was in the diner the weekend before, and Debbie marched over, plunked herself down in the booth across from me, and took one of the fries I'd asked her to hold. "So, are you going to Sunshine's opening in New York?"

I swallowed the last of my coffee. "Why would I do that?"

She snorted and huffed, but she didn't argue with me.

And I didn't go. In addition to not being a masochist, I had two businesses to run. But a couple of weeks later, I arranged a morning meeting in New York, and went to the gallery that afternoon.

I was glad he wasn't there. If he had been, I wouldn't have stood in front of his paintings for so long. I'd have had to say something, to come up with words.

Instead I stood there, just lost in them. One in particular, red and rough and full of life, an abstract canvas of angry sex. I'd known it was his the minute I walked in the door.

"What do you think?"

I don't know why I was so surprised, but I was. I tried to hide it, and shrugged. "Do you care what I think?"

Justin looked at me for a minute. "Yes."

I almost told him not to, but I was there, and it struck me at the last minute as hypocritical even for me. "They're exquisite."

That smile. I think I could probably have walked away if he hadn't smiled.

Then he frowned. "Brian, what the fuck are you doing here? Everyone told me you weren't coming."

I looked at him. "I was in New York on business, and thought I'd check out the great artiste. Why are you here? Have you quit your day job?"

"I work two blocks from here. I walk past this gallery on my way to the subway." He gestured towards the windows. "And I always look in to see if anyone's looking at my stuff. And there you were."

I nodded. "They're amazing." I stared at the one in front of us for a few more moments. "You're amazing."

He bumped me with his shoulder, and I was suddenly hyper-aware of his presence, of his warmth and his skin. I cleared my throat. "Let me buy you dinner. To celebrate."

Justin tipped his head a little to the side, and nodded. "Okay."

I took him somewhere expensive, and bought champagne, and halfway through the dinner I realized I'd made a mistake. He was laughing, and flushed, and just a little drunk, not on a few glasses of champagne, but on catching me looking at his paintings.

And I was drunk on him.

When the waiter brought the bill, I handed him my card without looking at it. I slipped my hand over Justin's on the table, and felt my lips folding in.

Justin smiled at me. "Why don't you show me your hotel room?"

I took him back with me, and when he was half-naked, pressed against me, when I had my tongue in his mouth and my hands in his hair, I felt something inside me crack open. I tried to stop it, but I couldn't. I just ate him alive, kissing and sucking and fucking, pressing my tongue inside his ass, bucking into his throat, driving into him like I'd never fucked anyone before.

He cried out when he came the second time; I think it hurt a little, my cock riding rough over his prostate too soon after the first time he came. But I didn't hold back, and I knew he didn't want me to, his hand reaching back and pulling on my thigh.

And when we were lying there together, tangled and wet, I kissed his hair, and knew we'd fucked it up, whatever fragile peace we'd made in our lives. Because he wasn't smiling anymore.

"God," he said, his face buried in my neck. "I'm never going to stop loving you."

I held him, hard, and pretended not to know that he was almost crying. And maybe I was, too, because my voice sounded rough and low. "I can't give you what you want."

There was a time I wouldn't have said "can't." I didn't know if he'd notice, but if he did, he didn't say. After a minute, all he said was, "I know."

I held him, and stroked his hair. When he spoke again, his voice was tight. "You know, if you really couldn't love me, or wouldn't love me, that would be one thing. But you do love me. I've known it for a long time. You know it, too." He swallowed. "So in the end, it's not about you not being able or willing to love me. It's that you can't, or won't, say it." He pulled away from me, and looked me in the face. "And Brian, that's totally bullshit."

I didn't look away, and after a minute, I just said it. "I love you."

Justin stared at me, and made a sound in his throat I couldn't interpret.

I just fell back on the pillow, and he threw himself down next to me. "Fuck."

I nodded.

He went up on his elbow and looked at me. "What the fuck did you say that for?"

"Because it's true."

"It's been true for a long time. Why now?"

I put my arm over my eyes. "I don't fucking know."

When I finally moved it away, Justin was looking at me, biting his lip. "Brian…"

I sat up, and we just looked at each other. I didn't know what to say; my brain was white noise.

He started again. "Brian. Thank you for saying it. Really."

I nodded, my throat tight.

He put his hand on my arm. "It doesn't change anything, though, does it? We still want... different things."

It was arguable at this point in my life that I knew what I wanted anymore, but I shrugged.

I finally looked at him, and he was staring at me like he'd never seen me before. "I can't fucking do this," he said, and got out of bed.

I got out and stood there while he pulled on his jeans. "Do what?"

He nodded at the bed. "This. Sleep with you. Listen to you tell me you love me, now, after it's…" He stopped.

I supplied the fatal phrase. "Too late?"

He looked right at me. "Pointless. And painful."

I snorted and thought, you have no idea, Sunshine.

IV.

So, that was that. He left, and I checked out of the hotel and went home. I didn't argue or try to change his mind. Why would I? I mean, I know I'm an asshole and I've hurt Justin a thousand different ways, but when he told me he'd always love me, it wasn't some sappy lesbianic promise; it was like he was under a curse.

Anytime I heard Justin would be in town, I avoided the diner, Debbie's, the comic book store, and anywhere else I thought he'd be. Michael figured out at some point what I was doing, but he'd finally stopped trying to fix things between me and Justin, and kept his fucking mouth shut other than to let me know when Justin would be around.

I laughed when I made my Christmas plans. I spent the holiday in New York City, and I amused myself with a little game, wondering, every time I saw a guy Justin would have liked, if he'd already fucked him.

But the truth was, for me, not seeing him didn't make that much difference. The absence of Justin in my life was just part of the background, just like the expectation of his absence was the background when he was there. Of course it hurt; that was the reason I'd wanted to avoid the whole fucking thing in the first place, because it was going to hurt. If I was surprised at how long and hard it hurt, I didn't let myself think about it.

That summer, I got an invitation to Jennifer Taylor's wedding, and I sent my regrets and an expensive gift.

But the night of the wedding, I was in the office at the club, talking to my manager, when I heard someone at the open door. I turned, and it was Justin, glitter in his hair and on his bare arms.

I stared at him. "What the fuck are you doing here? Shouldn't you be throwing rice at your mother?" And weren't we staying the fuck away from each other from now on, I thought, but didn't say.

He walked all the way into the room, and my manager suddenly remembered an urgent problem somewhere else. "She's left for her honeymoon." His eyes were dark, and I realized he was high. "It was a beeeyoooteeeful ceremony. You should have been there."

I picked up the bottle of water on the desk, flipped the top, and handed it to him. "I thought it was better if I didn't go."

Justin drank a little, and then stepped close enough to the desk to set the bottle down. "You're avoiding me."

I nodded. "I thought that was the deal."

He flashed me a smile, although it wasn't up to his usual standards. "Dance with me."

I knew Justin didn't want to dance. I was fairly sure what he wanted was for me to fuck the shit out of him, and see if it drove out whatever demons were screwing with his head. And I didn't think seeing his mommy get married was likely to be the problem.

I shook my head. "Have you eaten?" That seemed safer than dancing.

"I'm not hungry."

"There are a hundred men here who'd love to dance with you," I pointed out, but I let him take my hand and start dragging me out the door.

"I don't want to dance with them," he said.

But when we got to the catwalk, I stopped abruptly, and the force swung him around so he was facing me. I put a hand on either side of his face, and spoke slowly. "No dancing until you tell me what the fuck is wrong."

He looked at me for a minute, and his lashes brushed down, then back up. I ignored it. Next, I thought, he'd try pouting. But he didn't. He licked his lips, blinked again, and shrugged. "My asshole father picked Molly up after the reception. I was standing right there, and he turned his back on me. In front of everyone."

I didn't react, but inside I was thinking, one more time Craig Taylor fucks things up when I'm trying to do the right thing for Justin.

I went out onto the dance floor with him. I picked a spot where I knew the music was loud. I didn't want to talk, or think. But when I tightened my arms around him, he pulled back and looked up at me, and his eyes were dark. "You always wanted to move to New York, Brian. How come you never did?"

I shrugged, feeling his hands slide down my shoulders as they moved. "The timing was never right."

"I love New York." He moved his hips, and I realized the song had changed. "I hate it, too. It's big and bright and full of people. It has everything you could ever want, or imagine, and a thousand, a million, things you can't have."

"You're really high."

He looked at me, and smiled. "I'm actually only a little high." We just kept dancing, and after a while I kissed him. He smiled against my mouth, and I wondered what people would think about me kissing someone. There were guys dancing nearby whose mouths I'd turned away from. I doubted anyone there that night knew why, though. Fuck, these days, even I didn't know why.

The fourth time we fucked after he left was that night in the backroom. I thought it would be better, easier, something, than taking him to the loft. I fucked him against the wall, so hard he lifted up off his toes.

He came in my hand, and the feeling of his cock jerking against my palm, the hot come pouring over my fingers, pushed me over the edge, too. And then I felt the strangest crash, almost like I couldn't stand up anymore. I let myself sag against him, pressing him into the wall.

We stood like that a long time, and I finally eased out of him, a lot more gently than I'd eased in. I tossed the condom and fastened my jeans, and tried to figure out where he'd thrown my shirt. I found it, and I glanced at him while I was buttoning it up.

He grabbed the side of my face and pulled me in for a kiss, kind of sloppy and frantic. I kissed him back, and realized that backroom fuck hadn't done anything at all. He was still restless and high.

I kept our foreheads together when he finally broke the kiss. "Justin."

He blinked. I could feel his lashes move.

"Justin." This time I made my voice firmer.

"I know."

I didn't take him home this time, and I didn't kiss him when I put him in a cab. Then I went back inside the club and got as drunk as humanly possible without actually losing consciousness.

V.

When I woke up the next morning, I welcomed the hangover. I'd rather have a headache, however brutal, than feel whatever was lurking there under it. But halfway through my first pot of coffee, I experienced a feeling I didn't recognize.

I examined it, and turned it around a few times, before I admitted to myself it was something I'd sworn off much more successfully than I'd ever been able to swear off fucking Justin Taylor. It was regret. Regret that I hadn't brought Justin back here after all. Regret that he wasn't sitting on the stool next to me, snapping and snarling over who got to refill their coffee cup first.

Regret that I'd let him walk away two years before.

I took a shower, made another pot of coffee, took four aspirin, and still felt it.

I felt it all day long, at the gym, while I worked for a few hours in the evening, and while I ate Thai takeout in front of the television at the loft.

I thought about Justin asking why I'd never moved to New York. My answer was true, as far as it went; the timing had never been right. It wasn't right now, either; Kinnetik was a huge fish in the small pond that was Pittsburgh, but it would get eaten alive by the big boys if I tried to move it to New York.

But geography wasn't the problem. It never had been. The problem was that Justin wanted things from me I didn't know how to give him, and didn't want to give anyone. And he deserved those things, all of them. He deserved whatever the fuck he wanted and could get out of life.

I slept for shit Sunday night, and woke up Monday morning still feeling it. "No apologies," I told my face in the mirror while I shaved. "No regrets."

But like so many other things I'd told myself, it was bullshit.

I went to the office, and wasted the morning staring at my laptop and not getting anything done. It wasn't even 10 yet when I finally gave up, emailed Cynthia and Ted I was out for the rest of the day, and snapped it shut.

And then I got in the Corvette and drove to New York.

It was just past 5 when I pulled into a parking place near the gallery where Justin's paintings had shown the year before. I didn't go inside, just stood on the sidewalk. And at ten minutes past, he turned the corner. I saw his eyes flicker to the window and see me standing there. He stopped, two buildings away.

I took one step towards him, and then I stopped, too. He slowly walked the rest of the way towards me.

I didn't kiss him, or touch him. "I tried to figure out what to say the whole time I was driving here."

He blinked. "And did you?"

I folded my lips in for a second. "I think so."

He laughed. "And what did you conclude?"

"Why did you come to Babylon Saturday night?"

I'd surprised him, and he looked away before he answered. "Obviously, because I love you and am insane."

I felt my mouth quirk into a smile. "Seriously."

"No, that's pretty much the reason."

I bit my lip, and then nodded. "Okay. Then that's why I'm here, too."

"Because you're insane?"

I nodded again. "And I love you." My voice cracked, but I said it.

The smile. That was the first good sign since he'd seen me. I took advantage of the omen and put my hands on his shoulders. "So I was hoping that we could…" my voice kind of ran out.

"We could…"

I laughed. "I didn't get that far when I was driving."

He looked at me for a long time. "Well," he said. "I guess you could take me for a ride and we could see if we can figure it out together."

The fifth time I fucked Justin was that night in his hot little New York apartment, and after that, we lost count.


End file.
